No More Learning

The bold blue eyes stared
about them and the harsh voice asked:

--What is it?

--And here comes the sham squire himself! professor MacHugh said
grandly.

--Getonouthat, you bloody old pedagogue! the editor said in recognition.

--Come, Ned, Mr Dedalus said, putting on his hat. I must get a drink
after that.

--Drink! the editor cried. No drinks served before mass.

--Quite right too, Mr Dedalus said, going out. Come on, Ned.

Ned Lambert sidled down from the table. The editor's blue eyes roved
towards Mr Bloom's face, shadowed by a smile.

--Will you join us, Myles? Ned Lambert asked.

MEMORABLE BATTLES RECALLED


--North Cork militia! the editor cried, striding to the mantelpiece. We
won every time! North Cork and Spanish officers!

--Where was that, Myles? Ned Lambert asked with a reflective glance at
his toecaps.

--In Ohio! the editor shouted.

--So it was, begad, Ned Lambert agreed.

Passing out he whispered to J. J. O'Molloy:

--Incipient jigs. Sad case.

--Ohio! the editor crowed in high treble from his uplifted scarlet face.
My Ohio!

--A perfect cretic! the professor said. Long, short and long.

O, HARP EOLIAN!


He took a reel of dental floss from his waistcoat pocket and, breaking
off a piece, twanged it smartly between two and two of his resonant
unwashed teeth.

--Bingbang, bangbang.

Mr Bloom, seeing the coast clear, made for the inner door.

--Just a moment, Mr Crawford, he said. I just want to phone about an ad.

He went in.

--What about that leader this evening? professor MacHugh asked, coming
to the editor and laying a firm hand on his shoulder.

--That'll be all right, Myles Crawford said more calmly. Never you fret.
Hello, Jack. That's all right.

--Good day, Myles, J. J. O'Molloy said, letting the pages he held slip
limply back on the file. Is that Canada swindle case on today?

The telephone whirred inside.

--Twentyeight. . . No, twenty. . . Double four. . . Yes.

SPOT THE WINNER


Lenehan came out of the inner office with SPORT'S tissues.

--Who wants a dead cert for the Gold cup? he asked. Sceptre with O.
Madden up.

He tossed the tissues on to the table.

Screams of newsboys barefoot in the hall rushed near and the door was
flung open.

--Hush, Lenehan said. I hear feetstoops.

Professor MacHugh strode across the room and seized the cringing urchin
by the collar as the others scampered out of the hall and down the
steps. The tissues rustled up in the draught, floated softly in the air
blue scrawls and under the table came to earth.

--It wasn't me, sir. It was the big fellow shoved me, sir.

--Throw him out and shut the door, the editor said. There's a hurricane
blowing.

Lenehan began to paw the tissues up from the floor, grunting as he
stooped twice.

--Waiting for the racing special, sir, the newsboy said. It was Pat
Farrell shoved me, sir.

He pointed to two faces peering in round the doorframe.

--Him, sir.

--Out of this with you, professor MacHugh said gruffly.

He hustled the boy out and banged the door to.

J. J. O'Molloy turned the files crackingly over, murmuring, seeking:

--Continued on page six, column four.

--Yes, _Evening Telegraph_ here, Mr Bloom phoned from the inner office.
Is the boss. . . ? Yes, _Telegraph_. . . To where? Aha! Which auction rooms
? . . . Aha! I see. . . Right. I'll catch him.

A COLLISION ENSUES


The bell whirred again as he rang off. He came in quickly and bumped
against Lenehan who was struggling up with the second tissue.

--_Pardon, monsieur_, Lenehan said, clutching him for an instant and
making a grimace.

--My fault, Mr Bloom said, suffering his grip. Are you hurt? I'm in a
hurry.

--Knee, Lenehan said.

He made a comic face and whined, rubbing his knee:

--The accumulation of the _anno Domini_.

--Sorry, Mr Bloom said.

He went to the door and, holding it ajar, paused. J. J. O'Molloy slapped
the heavy pages over. The noise of two shrill voices, a mouthorgan,
echoed in the bare hallway from the newsboys squatted on the doorsteps:

_--We are the boys of Wexford
Who fought with heart and hand. _

EXIT BLOOM


--I'm just running round to Bachelor's walk, Mr Bloom said, about this
ad of Keyes's. Want to fix it up. They tell me he's round there in
Dillon's.

He looked indecisively for a moment at their faces. The editor who,
leaning against the mantelshelf, had propped his head on his hand,
suddenly stretched forth an arm amply.

--Begone! he said. The world is before you.

--Back in no time, Mr Bloom said, hurrying out.

J. J. O'Molloy took the tissues from Lenehan's hand and read them,
blowing them apart gently, without comment.

--He'll get that advertisement, the professor said, staring through his
blackrimmed spectacles over the crossblind. Look at the young scamps
after him.

--Show. Where? Lenehan cried, running to the window.

A STREET CORTEGE


Both smiled over the crossblind at the file of capering newsboys in Mr
Bloom's wake, the last zigzagging white on the breeze a mocking kite, a
tail of white bowknots.

--Look at the young guttersnipe behind him hue and cry, Lenehan said,
and you'll kick. O, my rib risible! Taking off his flat spaugs and the
walk. Small nines. Steal upon larks.

He began to mazurka in swift caricature across the floor on sliding
feet past the fireplace to J. J. O'Molloy who placed the tissues in his
receiving hands.

--What's that? Myles Crawford said with a start. Where are the other two
gone?

--Who? the professor said, turning. They're gone round to the Oval for a
drink. Paddy Hooper is there with Jack Hall. Came over last night.

--Come on then, Myles Crawford said. Where's my hat?

He walked jerkily into the office behind, parting the vent of his
jacket, jingling his keys in his back pocket. They jingled then in the
air and against the wood as he locked his desk drawer.

--He's pretty well on, professor MacHugh said in a low voice.

--Seems to be, J. J. O'Molloy said, taking out a cigarettecase in
murmuring meditation, but it is not always as it seems. Who has the most
matches?

THE CALUMET OF PEACE


He offered a cigarette to the professor and took one himself. Lenehan
promptly struck a match for them and lit their cigarettes in turn. J. J.
O'Molloy opened his case again and offered it.

--_Thanky vous_, Lenehan said, helping himself.

The editor came from the inner office, a straw hat awry on his brow. He
declaimed in song, pointing sternly at professor MacHugh:

_--'Twas rank and fame that tempted thee, 'Twas empire charmed thy
heart. _

The professor grinned, locking his long lips.

--Eh? You bloody old Roman empire? Myles Crawford said.

He took a cigarette from the open case. Lenehan, lighting it for him
with quick grace, said:

--Silence for my brandnew riddle!

--_Imperium romanum_, J. J. O'Molloy said gently. It sounds nobler than
British or Brixton. The word reminds one somehow of fat in the fire.

Myles Crawford blew his first puff violently towards the ceiling.

--That's it, he said. We are the fat. You and I are the fat in the fire.
We haven't got the chance of a snowball in hell.

THE GRANDEUR THAT WAS ROME


--Wait a moment, professor MacHugh said, raising two quiet claws. We
mustn't be led away by words, by sounds of words. We think of Rome,
imperial, imperious, imperative.

He extended elocutionary arms from frayed stained shirtcuffs, pausing:

--What was their civilisation? Vast, I allow: but vile. Cloacae: sewers.
The Jews in the wilderness and on the mountaintop said: _It is meet
to be here. Let us build an altar to Jehovah_. The Roman, like the
Englishman who follows in his footsteps, brought to every new shore on
which he set his foot (on our shore he never set it) only his cloacal
obsession. He gazed about him in his toga and he said: _It is meet to be
here. Let us construct a watercloset.
_

--Which they accordingly did do, Lenehan said. Our old ancient
ancestors, as we read in the first chapter of Guinness's, were partial
to the running stream.

--They were nature's gentlemen, J. J. O'Molloy murmured. But we have
also Roman law.

--And Pontius Pilate is its prophet, professor MacHugh responded.

--Do you know that story about chief baron Palles? J. J. O'Molloy asked.
It was at the royal university dinner. Everything was going swimmingly
. . .

--First my riddle, Lenehan said. Are you ready?

Mr O'Madden Burke, tall in copious grey of Donegal tweed, came in from
the hallway. Stephen Dedalus, behind him, uncovered as he entered.

--_Entrez, mes enfants! _ Lenehan cried.

--I escort a suppliant, Mr O'Madden Burke said melodiously. Youth led by
Experience visits Notoriety.

--How do you do? the editor said, holding out a hand. Come in. Your
governor is just gone. ? ? ?


Lenehan said to all:

--Silence! What opera resembles a railwayline? Reflect, ponder,
excogitate, reply.

Stephen handed over the typed sheets, pointing to the title and
signature.

--Who? the editor asked.

Bit torn off.

--Mr Garrett Deasy, Stephen said.

--That old pelters, the editor said. Who tore it? Was he short taken?

_On swift sail flaming
From storm and south
He comes, pale vampire,
Mouth to my mouth. _

--Good day, Stephen, the professor said, coming to peer over their
shoulders. Foot and mouth? Are you turned. . . ?

Bullockbefriending bard.

SHINDY IN WELLKNOWN RESTAURANT


--Good day, sir, Stephen answered blushing. The letter is not mine. Mr
Garrett Deasy asked me to. . .

--O, I know him, Myles Crawford said, and I knew his wife too. The
bloodiest old tartar God ever made. By Jesus, she had the foot and mouth
disease and no mistake! The night she threw the soup in the waiter's
face in the Star and Garter. Oho!

A woman brought sin into the world. For Helen, the runaway wife of
Menelaus, ten years the Greeks. O'Rourke, prince of Breffni.

--Is he a widower? Stephen asked.

--Ay, a grass one, Myles Crawford said, his eye running down the
typescript. Emperor's horses. Habsburg. An Irishman saved his life on
the ramparts of Vienna. Don't you forget! Maximilian Karl O'Donnell,
graf von Tirconnell in Ireland. Sent his heir over to make the king
an Austrian fieldmarshal now. Going to be trouble there one day. Wild
geese. O yes, every time. Don't you forget that!

--The moot point is did he forget it, J. J. O'Molloy said quietly,
turning a horseshoe paperweight. Saving princes is a thank you job.

Professor MacHugh turned on him.

--And if not? he said.

--I'll tell you how it was, Myles Crawford began. A Hungarian it was one
day. . . LOST CAUSES

NOBLE MARQUESS MENTIONED


--We were always loyal to lost causes, the professor said. Success for
us is the death of the intellect and of the imagination. We were never
loyal to the successful. We serve them. I teach the blatant Latin
language. I speak the tongue of a race the acme of whose mentality is
the maxim: time is money. Material domination. _Dominus! _ Lord! Where is
the spirituality? Lord Jesus? Lord Salisbury? A sofa in a westend club.
But the Greek!

KYRIE ELEISON!


A smile of light brightened his darkrimmed eyes, lengthened his long
lips.

--The Greek! he said again. _Kyrios! _ Shining word! The vowels the
Semite and the Saxon know not. _Kyrie! _ The radiance of the intellect.
I ought to profess Greek, the language of the mind. _Kyrie eleison! _ The
closetmaker and the cloacamaker will never be lords of our spirit. We
are liege subjects of the catholic chivalry of Europe that foundered at
Trafalgar and of the empire of the spirit, not an _imperium,_ that
went under with the Athenian fleets at Aegospotami. Yes, yes. They went
under. Pyrrhus, misled by an oracle, made a last attempt to retrieve the
fortunes of Greece. Loyal to a lost cause.

He strode away from them towards the window.

--They went forth to battle, Mr O'Madden Burke said greyly, but they
always fell.

--Boohoo! Lenehan wept with a little noise. Owing to a brick received in
the latter half of the _matinee_. Poor, poor, poor Pyrrhus!

He whispered then near Stephen's ear:

LENEHAN'S LIMERICK


_There's a ponderous pundit MacHugh
Who wears goggles of ebony hue.
As he mostly sees double
To wear them why trouble?
I can't see the Joe Miller. Can you? _

In mourning for Sallust, Mulligan says. Whose mother is beastly dead.

Myles Crawford crammed the sheets into a sidepocket.

--That'll be all right, he said. I'll read the rest after. That'll be
all right.

Lenehan extended his hands in protest.

--But my riddle! he said. What opera is like a railwayline?

--Opera? Mr O'Madden Burke's sphinx face reriddled.

Lenehan announced gladly:

--_The Rose of Castile_. See the wheeze? Rows of cast steel. Gee!

He poked Mr O'Madden Burke mildly in the spleen. Mr O'Madden Burke fell
back with grace on his umbrella, feigning a gasp.

--Help! he sighed. I feel a strong weakness.

Lenehan, rising to tiptoe, fanned his face rapidly with the rustling
tissues.

The professor, returning by way of the files, swept his hand across
Stephen's and Mr O'Madden Burke's loose ties.

--Paris, past and present, he said. You look like communards.

--Like fellows who had blown up the Bastile, J. J. O'Molloy said in
quiet mockery. Or was it you shot the lord lieutenant of Finland between
you? You look as though you had done the deed. General Bobrikoff.

OMNIUM GATHERUM


--We were only thinking about it, Stephen said.

--All the talents, Myles Crawford said. Law, the classics. . .

--The turf, Lenehan put in.

--Literature, the press.

--If Bloom were here, the professor said. The gentle art of
advertisement.

--And Madam Bloom, Mr O'Madden Burke added. The vocal muse. Dublin's
prime favourite.

Lenehan gave a loud cough.

--Ahem! he said very softly. O, for a fresh of breath air! I caught a
cold in the park. The gate was open.

YOU CAN DO IT!


The editor laid a nervous hand on Stephen's shoulder.

--I want you to write something for me, he said. Something with a bite
in it. You can do it. I see it in your face. _In the lexicon of youth_
. . .

See it in your face. See it in your eye. Lazy idle little schemer.

--Foot and mouth disease! the editor cried in scornful invective. Great
nationalist meeting in Borris-in-Ossory. All balls! Bulldosing the
public! Give them something with a bite in it. Put us all into it, damn
its soul. Father, Son and Holy Ghost and Jakes M'Carthy.

--We can all supply mental pabulum, Mr O'Madden Burke said.

Stephen raised his eyes to the bold unheeding stare.

--He wants you for the pressgang, J. J. O'Molloy said.